School was the primary focus of our time in February, followed closely by the Olympics. I have always been a fan of the Olympics, but became even more so when I was a volunteer at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. I worked in the Athlete’s Lounge at the Delta Center (at that time), the location for figure skating and short-track speed skating. I was fortunate enough to work with Apolo Anton Ohno almost every day! And here we are…eight years later…and he is still an Olympics celebrity! Ryan and I stopped everything we were doing when Apolo had an event. We celebrated when he won each additional medal, and were disappointed when he crashed or was disqualified. We also enjoyed watching skiing, snowboarding, and the other sports. We went into a little bit of withdrawal when the Olympics ended, but watched considerably less TV!
Our cub scout pack meeting for February was celebrating the 100th birthday/anniversary of the Boy Scouts. I talked about things that were happening in the country 100 years ago, and then we had a special guest speaker who has been involved with scouting for over 50 years! He has a fun collection of scout stuff from the past 50 years, so he talked about the changes in uniforms, awards, books, etc. He spotted Ryan in the front row with all of his arrow points and called him up as a "helper." He had no idea that Ryan was the cubmaster's son! He just saw the long line of arrow points and called on him, pointing out the long row of arrow points. Of course, Ryan loved it!
After our guest speaker finished speaking, we played a couple of fun birthday games and then had birthday cake. I think it went very well.
Ryan and I had a wonderful experience in February, due to the generosity of a lifelong friend. My friend Curtis has season tickets to the Jazz games, and his seats are just a few rows behind the Jazz bench. He was unable to attend a game one night, and gave us his tickets!
Curtis is also involved with several philanthropic organizations, including some with Thurl Bailey, former Jazz player and current Jazz commentator. Curtis not only gave us his tickets, but made arrangements for us to meet Thurl during the game. We also met Pace Mannion, former University of Utah player, who is now a commentator with Thurl Bailey. When we went up to the area where they broadcast, there was a crowd of people around watching and hoping for an autograph or a picture. Curtis told us to walk right up to the security guard, tell him that Curtis had sent us, and he’d let us in. He did! We had fun taking pictures on the set and getting autographs. The crowds waiting were very jealous, and we felt like VIPs!
Ryan was also thrilled to find out that Thurl was number 41 when he played for the Jazz…Ryan’s number this year on Jr. Jazz!
On Thursday night, we had the semi-annual President’s award dinner. I was one of a handful of employees honored for 5 years of service at WGU. I passed my 5 year point on November 15. My former boss and wonderful friend, Tom, was also honored for his 5 year anniversary. In previous years, a photographer has taken pictures of each honoree with President Bob Mendenhall, and then the entire “cohort” of employees celebrating the 5 year anniversary has a group picture taken. For reasons unknown, the pictures didn’t happen this year. So we took our own. 
WGU now has a chapter of Kappa Delta Pi, the honor society for educators. Two of my good friends are the advisors, and invited me to join as one of the employee members. They had all of the supplies, paperwork, programs, decorations, etc. shipped to my house, so I think they felt obligated. :) Friday, February 19, was the chartering and initiation ceremony. One of my students (originally from Pakistan and now living in New York) was asked to be one of the officers, so she and her husband came to attend. It was fun to meet her in person!
Saturday, February 20, was graduation. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t have any students travel to attend graduation. But my student and her husband decided to stay and attend the graduation ceremony. Also, since no photographer was taking pictures of the 5-year-service honorees with President Bob Mendenhall on Thursday, I had a friend take a picture of us at graduation. Perhaps it was more fun to have us in our full academic regalia in the picture anyway. 
It’s always an extremely week, but always a lot of fun to spend time with my good friends.
We went on a guided tour by bus, and were able to go to the actual sites and starting points for each of those events. Our tour guide was a former Olympic athlete, so he was able to provide a lot of fun details about the events and training. At one point, he commented that kids start training for Nordic ski jumping at about 10 years old. He looked at Ryan and said, “How old are you?” When Ryan answered that he was 9, our tour guide told him that he was just about ready to start. This happened just after Ryan had told me that he was too cold and wanted to stay on the bus. He has decided that he’ll stick with the Summer Olympic sports!
When our tour was finished, we went back into the Alf Engen Ski Museum & George Eccles Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games Museum. We enjoyed learning about the history of skiing, remembering some of the highlights of the 2002 Olympic games, and participating in several activities which simulated the various sports. Since the Vancouver Olympic games start in about three weeks, we are excited about all of the new things that we learned about winter Olympic sports.
When we finished seeing all of the fun things at the Utah Olympic Park, we drove to Park City’s Main Street. 
We had an extremely yummy lunch at Red Banjo Pizza (also using the Entertainment Book coupon). Ryan and Abby stuck with their regular plain cheese pizza and garlic bread. Kristin and I tried the chicken & artichoke pizza with lemon juice squeezed on it, as well as the zucchini sticks. Yum! When we finished lunch, we walked down Main Street to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and bought some absolutely scrumptious things for dessert.